War in Ukraine: “I want justice”, the story of a 14-year-old boy who was shot in Bucha with his father

As he listened to his father’s death, the boy lay on the asphalt. his elbow hurts, stabbed by a bullet. His thumb was pierced where another bullet hit.

This is another murder on a street lonely town of Bucha, a town on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, kyiv, where corpses of civilians continue to be found weeks after the Russian soldiers left. Many of the dead received headshots.

Yura Nechyporenko, then 14 years old, will soon be one of them.

By bicycle, with a white flag

Survivors described how soldiers shot them near the feet or threatened them with grenades, before they were pulled away by some more calm companions. But on that day in March no one held the Russian soldier when Yura and his father, Ruslan, 47, they passed by bicycle down a main street.

They went to visit poor neighbors, refugees in cellars and houses without electricity or water. they wore a knot of white cloth on bicycles, a sign that they are riding in peace.

When the soldier came out of the dirty road to reprimand them, Yura and his father immediately stopped and they raised their hands.

“What are you doing?” the soldier asked. Yura’s father He had no time to answer.

The boy heard two gunshots. His father fell to the groundthe mouth is open and bleeding.

A shot hit Yura’s hand and he also fell. Another shot hit him in the elbow. He closed his eyes.

There is one last shot.

Yura’s extraordinary testimony to an attempted murder of Russian soldiers is getting attention at a time when international justice experts have come to Bucha, became the nucleus of horrors Y war crimes in Ukraine. In Bucha alone, 31 children under the age of 18 were killed and 19 were injured, according to local authorities.

“All the children were killed or injured deliberately waybecause it was deliberately shot by Russian soldiers evacuation of vehicles marked `CHILDREN ‘ and there was a white cloth tied, and the homes of civilians were deliberately shot at, “the region’s chief prosecutor, Ruslan Kravchenko, told The Associated Press.

The United Nations human rights office says at least 202 children died in the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and believe that the actual number is much higher. The Ukrainian government counted 217 children dead and about 390 injured.

war crimes

From a variety of sources, AP and Frontline have independently documented 18 attacks where children die most likely meets the definition of a war crime. The number of minors who have been victims of the attacks is unknown, and that number hardly represents a part of possible war crimes.

Yura is a growing teenager, tall and has acne on his face, and dark shadows under his eyes. He lay on the floor of the family home to explain what had happened and shows the holes healing in his elbow.

Her mother Alla took a deep breath to calm herself. Yura sat down and hugged her, before placing her head on her mother’s shoulder.

On that fateful day, Yura survived the murder attempt thanks to that same teenage girl, her gray sweatshirt. The blast went through the hood instead of him.and he felt her move.

Yura remained silent for a few minutes on the ground, waiting for the soldier to leave.

later, Yura ran.

When he finally got home, his family called the police. Police told the family that officers they do not know what to do in the case, according to the boy’s uncle Andriy. A prosecutor’s report describes the murder and attempted murder in several cleared sentences. Kravchenko told the AP they were still working on Yura’s case.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor announced in March that investigations of crimes against children in particular would receive support from a new fund.

Men make up half or more of those affected by the conflict, but are often seen as too weak to express or that his memory is inaccurate, said Veronique Aubert, special counsel to the ICC prosecutor on crimes involving children.

an unusual case

Yura’s case not ordinary.

“Prosecutors may want this case because the victim is still alive and can testify,” said Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University and former special counsel with the Department of Defense.

“It may be difficult, if not impossible, for a defendant to claim that they have some justification to try to kill a child.

Yura’s family recovered his father’s body the next day. Yura’s grandmother begged the Russian soldiers to let her approach.

The weapons were loaded, it let him pass. Another soldier shouted from a distance, “Don’t come here and we will kill you.” But he did not shoot.

They took the body home in a wheelbarrow Y they buried him in the gardenin one of the many hastily excavated graves during the month of the Russian occupation.

Yuri and her family they left Bucha the next day on one of several occasions to exit an evacuation corridor. They had to go through the shooting scene. Yura was wearing a white sling and the Russian soldiers asked what had happened.

“I was shot by a Russian soldier”child’s answer.

Her answer scared her mother. “I felt like everything was collapsing inside of me,” he recalled. “I thought they were all going to shoot us all.”

But the soldiers missed them. The family left the area that day.

The gray tracksuit, which was bloody at the elbow and torn at its top seam, is now at the center of the family’s search for justice. When the Russians left, they returned to Bucha and re -buried Yura’s father.

Her mother is considering sending the child abroad for her mental health. He also needs a little distance.

“Physically I’m never alone, but it’s possible to be alone mentally,” she said on the verge of tears. “I try to avoid it.”

He hopes the courts will work and he believes no one should go through what his son went through.

“I’m not the only one who wants justice, ” he said.” Even now there might be people tortured and killed in Ukraine ”.

Yura turned 15 on April 12. It was a birthday with little celebration. Usually, her father, a great cook, prepares something to celebrate it.

The family reunited on April 25 to mark the 40th day since Ruslan’s death, as is the custom of the places. Yura quietly lit a candle and laid it in the tomb. He then covered his head with the hood of a sweatshirt, a black one, to protect himself from the cold.

The child’s uncle, Andriy, fears the trauma of surviving death Yura was affected.

“It’s destroying my soul”cried Andriy. “What we see is suffering after suffering.”

Frontline producer Tom Jennings contributed to this report.

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